Rome: A deepening immigration crisis is threatening to rip the “soul” out of the European Union, Italy’s foreign minister warned yesterday.
In a hard-hitting interview, Paolo Gentiloni said the kind of chaotic scenes witnessed this weekend at the Greece-Macedonia border represented a real threat to the free movement of people.
Separately, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called for the EU’s asylum policy to be overhauled, and for member-states to share the migratory influx “fairly.”
“On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decision-making and rows between member states,” Gentiloni told Il Messaggero. “I am very worried. Today it is on this issue that Europe will either rediscover its soul or lose it for good.”
Gentiloni urged EU partners to start working on a common solution to the crisis. The alternative, he warned, would be the inevitable collapse of the Schengen accords which allow free travel across much of continental Europe.
“What is at risk is one of the fundamental pillars of the European Union: the free circulation of people,” the minister said.
“From the Sicilian coast to Kos, from Macedonia to Hungary and at Calais, tensions are mounting and, over time, they could put Schengen in question.
“Can we imagine a Union without Schengen? A return to the old borders? Migrants are not arriving in Greece, Italy or Hungary. They’re arriving in Europe. That is why the reception rules have to be ‘Europeanised’.”
AFP
